Rogue Justice by Stacey Abrams

ROGUE JUSTICE by Stacey Abrams (While Justice Sleeps) is another adventuresome mystery featuring Supreme Court clerk Avery Keene. While still dealing with fallout from her last confrontation with the federal government, Avery is approached with worrisome files and a doctored video indicating that a recently deceased federal judge may have been compromised. Before Avery can learn much more, she witnesses horrific murder and finds her own life and those of her friends to be threatened. Abrams imagines a plausible attack on the federal government, infrastructure, and the financial sector. That is all too real given recent news articles like: “US government agencies hit in global cyberattack” per CNN, “Food Producers Band Together in Face of Cyber Threats” from the Wall Street Journal, or even on the vulnerabilities of the electric grid from The New York Times. Avery and her “team,” including FBI Agent Robert Lee, not only have to discover the source of the plot, they also struggle to avoid politics and to convince bureaucrats of its seriousness, once again mirroring the real world. The pacing seems a bit slow in places and there are some convenient coincidences, but ROGUE JUSTICE is still an entertaining puzzle, appearing on a recent New York Times list, “Murder, They Wrote,” of newly published and recommended summer crime novels.